In his February 2012 column in Industrial Engineer, performance columnist Kevin McManus says a leap year means that all salaried employees will give a free day of work to their employers. We can choose to make better use of this extra time that is built into our calendars every four years. How will you spend it?

The CEO of outdoor supplies purveyor MidwayUSA, the 2009 winner of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, takes aim at quality and organizational excellence, according to a Jan. 24, 2012, article from Inc.

The beauty and elegance of lean Six Sigma and other continuous improvement initiatives is that the same set of tools, techniques and methods can be used across the full range of processes from drinking a cup of coffee to the entire operation of a multinational corporation. The shared commonality is that a sequence of steps is performed to produce a desired output. However, according to this article from the September 2011 issue of Industrial Engineer, the tools of lean Six Sigma are limited and constrained by the quality of the measured data.

According to this feature from the August 2011 issue of Industrial Engineer, improvement is the business religion and solid fundamental platform that makes everything else better. If lean Six Sigma is not successful at producing sustainable results in your organization, it is not the fault of lean Six Sigma.

A process improvement specialist and Lean Six Sigma master black belt from the U.S. Army Forces Command is helping evaluate plans for removing U.S. military personnel and equipment from Iraq by the end of the year, according to this June 6, 2011, article.

Two college friends from Cookeville, Tenn., have put a new spin on Six Sigma instruction. The video has been building an audience on the Internet. Read this feature about its creation from the May 2011 issue of Industrial Engineer.

This article from the March 2011 issue of IndustrialEngineer presents the most important decisions regarding the configuration, the trade-offs involved, and a general characterization of the methods commonly used to achieve it.

According to this January 2011 feature in Industrial Engineer, hands-on experiences and a brief lean Six Sigma case study show the possibilities for continuous quality improvement in the food industry.

According to this July/August 2010 article in Industrial Management, both producers and consumers lose more in dollar value due to the results of poor quality within manufacturing. Although identification of quality costs theoretically is possible, it may prove to be unrealistic with today's accounting systems.

In his December 2009 IE column, Kevin McManus says businesses should attempt a new approach at how they set business goals and how to achieve them. "Don't set goals that extend beyond the current process limits unless you are clear on how you are going to change the system to make this happen."

In his November 2009 IE column, Kevin McManus reiterates how the dream of "zero defects" will more than likely never become a reality. But systems can still be designed to prevent major process defects such as lost customers, product recalls and fatalities from happening over an extended period of time.

In his October IE column, Kevin McManus pleads with readers to avoid making long-term mistakes in their careers by examining what path they really want to follow as well as determining whether the workplace has become a bore or if it preventing career advancement.

The economic downturn starting in 2008 hasn't stopped manufacturing companies from trying to break out of their box and into service processes, such as accounting and logistics. But is now a good time to try it?

Mikel Harry and Richard Schroeder helped pioneer Six Sigma while working at Motorola in the 1980s, and their book shows how Six Sigma is working at companies such as General Electric, Polaroid and Allied Signal.

Columbus Regional Hospital (CRH) in Ohio has been dedicated to the integration of lean sigma performance improvement into its normal business operations. This case study describes the hospital’s experience in the first two years of implementation and the initial results.